9 incredible tools for sales operations and enablement

Today’s sales teams need all the help they can get to sell better. That’s because buyers are now savvier and have more available options than ever. And that’s where sales enablement tools come in.

These tools make it easy for salespeople to go through each stage of the sales cycle much faster. Without them, salespeople would still be stuck doing manual, repetitive tasks. Such as dialing each prospects number one by one. Would you believe that was how they made calls back in the day?

Now, with sales enablement tools, you can do the same tasks in a fraction of the time. Plus, you can do so much more than was possible before these came into existence.

In this article, I am sharing some of the best sales enablement tools. These help salespeople to get things done in an organized and efficient manner.

So without any more delay, let’s begin.

1. Membrain

Membrain has been designed to help sales teams involved in a complex b2b sales environment. Compared to other settings, b2b sales mean longer sales cycles and many stakeholders. For this reason, there is a need for a dedicated platform that can meet the demands of such sales teams.

That’s why Membrain is one of the best b2b sales enablement tools out there. This platform makes it easy for sales teams to execute their sales strategy for a consistent sales performance. It does this by providing them with continuous guidance through the entire sales process. It also enables sales leaders to coach their team to a higher level of performance. You can use it inside of Salesforce or as a standalone to replace a traditional CRM.

Apart from the above, salespeople also have access to visual tools that make selling a much better experience. Also, the powerful analytics help to track performance and key metrics. This allows companies to optimize sales execution and to turn salespeople into their competitive advantage.

2. Showpad

It’s no secret that content is important for the growth of any business. But putting the right content in the hand of salespeople at the right time is tricky. With Showpad, it’s easy to get started with organizing your company’s content assets. It’s intuitive and robust features make it easy to scale your content strategy as well.

Founded in 2011, it powers content for over 850 companies globally. This includes Johnson & Johnson, Fujifilm, Audi, Intel, and Kimberly-Clark. So at its core, Showpad helps salespeople to find and present relevant content to prospects.

Through a centralized content hub, salespeople can deliver relevant content to targeted audiences. No matter the format of your content (PDF, HTML5, video etc.) your sales team can share it with your prospects on any device.

With built-in analytics and reports, you can track and measure content performance in a snap. This way it’s easy to determine ROI as well as engagement metrics for each piece of content.

3. ClearSlide

Apart from providing a plethora of business solutions, ClearSlide also offers sales enablement tools. These tools help improve sales operations and make it easier to onboard reps in much less time.

No doubt activity data and sales metrics are key to the success of any sales strategy. With ClearSlide, you get access to better data and accurate metrics. The result is that forecasting moves away from half-baked guesses and instead has real-world, accurate data to back it up.

Another important feature of ClearSlide is the Sales Engagement platform. This makes content, integrated communication and analytics available to sales teams. In short, interaction with customers and prospects is more streamlined and organized.

One more thing, ClearSlide also captures and logs activity from customer interactions. It makes this available in either Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics. Also, the ClearSlide APIs can integrate with any custom CRM or CSM system.

4. Unboxed Advisor

Unboxed Advisor is another sales enablement tool worth checking out. At its core, it is a platform built for enterprise sales teams. The other thing worth mentioning is that it helps reps connect face to face with customers.

Some features of Advisor include:

Interactive demos that help to showcase a product or service.

A guided selling engine that uses customer inputs to create a best-fit recommendation

A content library to organize and share up-to-date marketing and sales collateral

A lightweight CRM that manages accounts and recommendations. (Note: This is not a replacement for a full CRM but it does integrate with Salesforce).

Powerful reporting capabilities that capture data about what happened during the sales conversation.

Advisor also helps to cut down the training time for reps. This tool serves as a guide for them as well as customers. Plus, it also recommends add-ons and other complementary products/services. With this, it becomes easy to increase the average deal size.

For each client, Advisor customizes and configures their material which is either delivered as an iPad or a web-based app. Below is an example of an interactive app that Advisor created for Samsung. With this app, Samsung’s salespeople can guide buyers on the right TV to suit their lifestyle.

Other companies that use Advisor include Anthem, Comcast, Charter Communications, HP etc. These companies have seen up to a 60% increase in YOY sales and a 40% increase in rep productivity after taking advantage of this platform.

5. Refract

Refract makes coaching for managers and peer collaboration simple, measurable and effective. That’s why it made it to our list of sales enablement tools.

Did you know that sales coaching ranks as the most important role for managers? Yet most spend less than 5% of their time coaching and developing their sales reps? Why is that?

For many, failure to coach sales reps boils down to time constraints. Also, geographical challenges and lack of tools add to the difficulties. The result is that sales coaching often falls by the wayside. And that is unfortunate considering the fact that proper sales coaching helps to improve performance.

If you want effective sales coaching in your company, then Refract provides the perfect solution. This platform can help you observe and coach calls, demos, role-plays and presentations. Plus, it gets rid of the necessity to conduct ‘ride alongs’ in person. It also helps to cut back on the time and expense to coach reps one-to-one.

With Refract, you can tag key moments of all sales interactions for focused feedback opportunities. You can then go ahead and share this with reps. This makes for an interactive and measurable coaching experiences.

Apart from the above, you can also add best examples to a shared library. This way, successful sales performance is not forgotten about. The shared library can also help onboard new reps faster or to level up other members of the team.

Managers can track coaching consistency and quality from within the Refract dashboard. Apart from this, they can also measure individual improvements and team trends.

6. CrazyCall

CrazyCall is a cloud-based platform designed for sales teams who sell over the phone. With this, they can make local/international sales calls and run calling campaigns with ease.

One of the most difficult tasks that sales teams are handling daily is making hundreds of calls. Contacting your potential customers and convincing them that you’re the right fit is tough.

This is especially true during the Christmas season. That’s because most of the people you’d like to call are already stressed out. With personal commitments eating up their time, it’s harder to get them to listen to you.

It’s not possible to get rid of the stress sales teams deal with. But making calling a more pleasant and effective experience helps to reduce the stress. And that’s what CrazyCall hopes to achieve.

Here are some features of CrazyCall:

Availability of local phone numbers that will help increase your contact rate.

Set up whole calling campaigns in just a few minutes.

Watch your agent’s live and past conversations whenever you want.

Personalize calling panels and scripts so you are able to communicate better.

Use tags, automatic emails, and intelligent power dialers to save time.

Apart from the above, you can also access important analytics in the dashboard. This way, you will be able to track progress and gain insights to your calling campaigns.

Also, CrazyCall offersa 14 days trial so you can test out the platform.

7. GetAccept

Next on the list of sales enablement tools is GetAccept. This platform has a specific aim: to help salespeople close more deals. And how does it do that? Let’s find out.

When it comes to sales, closing deals is another process altogether. Without an organized setup, it’s easy to lose even the most interested of prospects. That’s why it’s important to offer salespeople a complete toolkit so potential buyers do not slip through their fingers at the final moment.

With GetAccept, it becomes easier to close deals since it provides salespeople with just the tools they need to finalize more deals.

Below are some features of GetAccept:

With e-signatures, it becomes easier to sign sales documents quickly and securely.

Video introduction and presentation helps sales reps to build relationship and trust. By sending a personal video with each sales proposal, it becomes easy to stand out.

Real-time messaging and discussions help drive deals forward. This is because sales reps can communicate with prospects via messages from within documents.

Mobile apps for both iOS and Android ensure that you stay updated on the go.

Integration with SalesForce, HubSpot, AdWords, Gmail and many other sales platforms.

Apart from the above, the simple workflow, advanced insights and strong focus on sales in reporting are worth a mention.

8. SalesHandy

In my older article about email tracking, I mentioned SalesHandy as a good option. But apart from email tracking, this platform has a lot more to offer. In fact, it also falls under sales enablement tools and that’s why I decided to include it to this post.

What’s SalesHandy about? Well, the basic definition will be that it is a cloud-based sales engagement platform. You can use it to share files, track emails and launch personalized email campaigns. This is just an overview of its main features.

SalesHandy also helps sales teams to create and execute viable sales & marketing strategies. It does this by tracking sales resources and user insights. With this tool, sales managers can track/measure their team’s email performance and workflow.

Other notable features in SalesHandy include centralized email templates, screen sharing and synced document management. Not to forget, it integrates well with Gmail/Outlook so you can do so much more right in your inbox.

9. Bambu

Thanks to the explosion of social media, we can now share content like never before. And we can also reach qualified leads in the process. Because of this, many companies are eager to jump onto the social selling bandwagon. But if your salespeople are sharing content just for the sake of it, then it’s a waste of time. The key to social selling is to share the best content with the right audience.

And here is where Bambu comes in. A product of Sprout Social, this tool makes it easy to implement social selling. With this, you take the guesswork out of what salespeople should share on social media.

Not only is it easier to distribute curated content with your sales team but also faster. Whether it’s Linkedin, Twitter or Facebook, Bambu helps streamline social selling activities on any of these networks.

With built-in reporting features, you can view content shares and other important metrics. This will help you understand what type of content is doing well. It also makes it easy to track who on your sales team is connecting with potential buyers the most.

If you made it this far, two thumbs up! Hopefully, you found this list of sales enablement tools useful.

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